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Forests and the folk. Perceptions of nature in the swidden regimes of highland Malabar.

Author:

Rich Freeman

Publisher:

Institut Français de Pondichéry

Year:1994

Pages:

36 p.

Series:

Pondy Papers in Social Sciences n°15

Language:

English

ISBN:

978-81-8470-062-6

Price:

120 Rs (5 €)

Remarks:---

About the book

This paper explores the popular attitude towards the forest and its natural resources as reflected in the memories, folk-sources and religious institutions of former swidden agriculturalists living in the highlands of Kasaraod District in Northern Kerala. A central focus of this piece is on "sacred grove" (kavu). The author questions the extension of values regarding sacred groves to the non-sacred forests as a general model for pre-colonial attistudes to the environment, and presents a far more ambivalent set of popular attitudes to forest resources and the dangers and labour required in their utilization. He finally turns to a consideration of the social inequalities of labour-relations in the caste-based swidden regimes, and concludes with the suggestion that much of the antagonism generated in the social struggle over resources was read back into the forest as a reflection of nature's own violence.